


find a love who doubles

by eggfish



Category: Original Work
Genre: Friends With Benefits, M/M, Smut, Societal Homophobia, Two-Sided Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:47:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26799061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eggfish/pseuds/eggfish
Summary: A beautiful face could hide all sorts of ugliness, too. "Weeks we've been with these people and you can't find anyone better to warm your bed. How embarrassing," Fionn said, even as he rearranged himself closer so they could share breaths.
Relationships: Paranoid Con Man/Stalwart Partner in Crime
Kudos: 3





	find a love who doubles

**Author's Note:**

> I realised this all sounds even more stupid if you don't pronounce their names to sound good together, so just to clarify, Diya 'dee-yah', Fionn 'fyon' (which is 1 syllable, but a relaxed one) or even 'fee-yon' (though that would be wrong irl)
> 
> Title from A Heart to Hold You by Keane (lmao).

Fionn hurried into Diya's tent that night without bothering to stop by at his own first, even though he'd put it up right next door. He yanked off his boots just inside the flap, which was the Arnad rule, and then flung off his cloak to land in a heap on the floor, which was a bad habit of his own, and then he plucked Diya's guitar out of his busy hands and hunkered next to him on the camp bed with that old conspiratorial look in his eyes.

"So," he said, "I've been making friends with the quartermaster, and it turns out the security on the cash they keep for paying off the towns is about as tight as a cobweb. It's all in a lock-box in one of the wagons - and I know which one, and I know when the sentry shifts change - " He began to outline a plan.

"Well, I'm glad you've been making friends," Diya replied, which achieved nothing more than making his partner's eyebrows come together painfully over his sky-blue eyes. Fionn had a pale, fine-featured northerner face, with arching brows - dyed reddish at the moment, like his hair, though it was washing out - and when he showed his upset, he always looked thunderously pissed-off, no matter the actual emotion. Right now he looked like some aristocrat being told his farmers' fields had all caught crop-blight overnight, but he was only annoyed; they'd been having this argument for weeks, after all.

"What's your problem? You don't think we could fleece them and be over the hill before anyone realised?" he pressed. This was the first time he'd gone as far devising as a full-fledged plan on his own, and he'd purposefully picked something that would appeal to Diya's sense of caution: conventional, unambitious, hard to trace afterwards. This must be so frustrating for him.

Diya sighed. "Bro, I _think_ we have salaries now - "

"Not enough, not fast enough, and not without risking our lives," Fionn counted off. His left leg bounced impatiently beneath him. "Stable employment isn't safe for wanted men." 

"We're under their protection. Much safer. Also, helping to make a revolution does not count as stable."

"We're just replacing one puppet with another. It's mercenary work."

"Fionn, I've told you, it's more than that," Diya said, gripping his arm to get his full attention. "You don't trust me?"

"I hate it when you use that argument," Fionn said, but his leg stilled for a moment.

Diya hated that argument too. Fionn was still so high-strung, still ready to make a break for it the moment his trust snapped. Diya was the reliable one; Fionn was the betrayer. That was how it had been from the day they met, when Fionn had stolen all his money and in return he'd saved the man from the Trestawn city guard. Now it felt like he was staking their entire relationship on this chance.

They stared at each other for a moment, brown hand against sand-pale arm, both thinking about this issue. 

"Anyway, whether or not I do, your judgement has been terrible on plenty of occasions," Fionn said at last, shaking him off and standing up. "Put _that_ under your pillow."

"Don't leave so quickly," Diya said, perhaps not as impulsively as he should have. "Let's have a drink. Forget that for a bit."

"Like I haven't tried that already," the other muttered, but he went to get the bottle from Diya's things. It was Arnad fig brandy, not very good - it was a stroke of luck he'd even found some this far north - but it was still better than any of the native spirits, which seemed purposely designed to taste bad. They drank in surly silence, shadowed in the dim amber lamplight.

"You're _sure_ there's no secret female drink," Diya mused eventually, the warmth of the drink giving him an excuse not to be mad. 

"What?" 

"For you sweetness is female - feminine - and bitterness is masculine, isn't it? But all your alcohol tastes like shit. What can you drink to feel like a real woman in Esslan?"

Fionn screwed up his face in thought. "You're always so... restrictive," he said, making a delicate gesture to indicate _all Arnad people_ as if that's not bullshit. "So fussy. Not everything needs to have a counterpart. A good woman knows that she has most power over her man when he's drunk. So she stays sober."

"Not everything needs a counterpart, but a woman always has her man?"

"No, no. A good woman. And a good man."

"So strange," Diya said. He drained his cup and set it down on the floor. The next part was inevitable. "So Fionn, my friend, are you a good man?"

"I'm just terrible, Diya, you know that," Fionn replied, showing his own empty cup with a smile. Smiles were what his face was really built for; they made him look more like one of the empty-handed princes from the Esslanian ballads Diya loved to play the most, the ones that always got people singing along.

He smiled back. "You wouldn't tell by looking," he said softly.

A beautiful face could hide all sorts of ugliness, too. "Weeks we've been with these people and you can't find anyone better to warm your bed. How embarrassing," Fionn said, even as he rearranged himself closer so they could share breaths. 

"I've gotten lazy. It's so helpful how you come to me on your own."

Too close for talk now. Fionn's touch was as hot and hard as any Arnad caravan-brother's, but he clutched his arms around Diya and kissed him like a lover too; one advantage of an Esslanian man. They had slept together enough that there were no surprises left, but Fionn still approached it with a certain nervous intensity, like he was thinking it all through in advance, already impatient to get to the reward. To Diya this was sweeter and headier than the brandy left over on their lips.

They could've gone on in a mostly-clothed fumble, as they usually did, sharing beds or camp firesides without much ceremony. But hell, he might as well remind Fionn of another advantage to settling in and taking your time. He interrupted matters to get the other man's tunic off him, making a meal of folding it up and laying it neatly over the end of the cot. This got him an insult and an undershirt thrown at his head. Another, much older and pettier, argument of theirs.

The rest of the clothes were dealt with in more of a hurry, and then they hid together from the winter chill beneath his scratchy woollen blanket, savouring the feel of skin on skin. Fionn climbed right on top of him, pressing the lengths of their bodies together. Diya's head filled up with his partner's scent, making him sleepy and warm with desire; for a while he could not think to do more than run one hand up and down Fionn's back and bury the other in his brittle hair to kiss him. He liked the funny noise he could coax out of Fionn, who was usually such a tricky instrument, just by rubbing little circles on his scalp at times like this. 

But soon enough Fionn got an arm between them and he felt those deft fingers grinding them together, hips shifting and thighs tensing up against his - soon enough even he got impatient. He shoved Fionn off and sat up, looking regretfully at his pack over on the other side of the tent.

"Here," Fionn said, holding up the bottle of oil. He must have gotten it at the same time as the drink and hidden it somewhere nearby.

Diya couldn't suppress a snort of laughter. "Fuck you," he said, lying back down. 

"Be less predictable," was the reply. 

A camp bed was not exactly stable furniture, but neither wanted to leave its warmth. They went slow. Fionn managed to look tense just lying on his front, head twisted to the side so he could glance up out of one narrow eye. Diya braced both elbows on the bed and restrained himself, fucking him so the bed squeaked just barely. He let his eyes fall shut and half-listened for the gasps and curses in between the mechanical squeaks. Fionn usually used quite clean language, but at times like this he couldn't make a sound without swearing, which Diya enjoyed immensely.

"I bet you're glad I didn't find someone else now," he murmured into Fionn's ear.

"Shut your goddamn mouth." 

"And you're next door, so you'd have to listen to us…"

"You're a real dickhead, you know that."

He'd imagined, before, how Fionn might touch himself in private. Back against the wall, facing the door, probably. Face caught in an angry frown of concentration, all tangled up in himself as he desperately worked up to a climax. Add the idea of him spying on Diya as he did it, feeling a sharp throb of arousal with every eavesdropped moan. Damn. He opened his eyes and reached down to stroke the real Fionn off, intent on getting him into that state. 

Fionn had turned his face into the pillow. The muscles of his back worked and his shoulder blades stood out sharply as Diya's motions intensified. "Diya - Diya, I hate you so much," he said. "You have no fucking idea." There was some rare note in his voice - something bitter and heartfelt - that sent a fresh shiver of arousal through Diya. 

He felt Fionn's hand come up to grip his thigh, urging him on as he sped up into a suddenly-crucial rhythm; the squeaking of the bed ramped up. They came only a beat apart. 

He rolled off to catch his breath. Well, that had been weird. _I hate you so much, you have no fucking idea_ was not normal pillow talk and should not have done it for him. But even now the memory gave him a sort of vindictive pleasure. His own feelings toward Fionn were certainly messy enough. It was always nice to be reminded that it was mutual. 

"I hate you too," he told his partner contentedly, turning over to put one arm around him. 

Post-coital, Fionn was finally halfway to relaxed. He gave Diya a sleepy grin. "What?"

"No need to play innocent."

"How about no need to give me such a stupid response," Fionn said with feeling. But as they stared at each other, the grin snuck back on to his face. "...forget it. Want to go again?"

"Just what I was thinking."

**Author's Note:**

> Diya and Fionn are two units from an imaginary Fire Emblem game of mine, which is why their jobs are so vague, because they actually just involve standing on a square and having high stats. Diya is a Brigand and Fionn is (unsurprisingly) a Thief. You can recruit them quite early on, but only as a pair, of course.


End file.
